Report about the 3rd FEPTO Network Meeting “Psychodrama with children and youth” 2nd – 4th of February, Turin, 2018

The topic of the meeting was “Disorder specific Interventions in Psychodrama Therapy with Children and Youth” and 9 workshops and two plenary sessions were presented during these three wonderful days in Turin. 85 psychodramatists from 10 different countries who are working with children and youth have attended the meeting. At the end of the event we, as organisers, started to ask ourselves “Is this a network meeting or a conference?”

Only a short review of what happened in this network group till now. In 2016 a group of colleagues from FEPTO have built a new international platform for psychodrama with children and youth networking. 18 participants from 8 different European countries accepted the invitation and the challenge to revive the network group and came to Berlin.

In 2017 the Kende Hanna Psychodrama with Children Association and the Hungarian Psychodrama Association invited the FEPTO network group to Budapest and organized a meeting in which 40 participants have attended.

And in 2018 our colleague Angela Sordano and her team have organized more or less a conference for us.

I met Angela Sordano for the first time in Berlin and I remember her sentence; “I am so happy to be here, because in Italy I feel alone as a psychodrama therapist who work with children.” And now more than 60 participants from Italy attended the network meeting and get to know each other better.

After a warm welcome and a short warm up of the group Milena Mutafchieva presented FEPTO as the umbrella organization of this meeting and the network group. Than we had the pleasure to listen to a fruitful lecture of Angela Sordano Intersubjective processes in groups with children and adolescents: An Junghian perspective.

On Saturday 8 parallel workshops were conducted and you can find a short overview of the rich diversity of topics and leaders below. Detailed description of the workshops can be found on FEPTO website www.fepto.com

“The role of symbolic play in promoting the resilience of deeply traumatized children”. Hanna Kende, Csilla Németh, Melinda Varga and Stefania Giampauli, Hungary

“Group Therapy with Children Having Psychiatric Disorders: Play Therapy and Psychodrama”

Hanan El-Mazahy, Egypt

“The Life Cycle of an Adolescent Psychodrama Group – how content and process change over time”

Craig Stevens, UK

“Where There’s a Will There’s a Way – young people, psychodrama and illness”

Kate Kirk, Isle of Man

“Adolescents in groups between trauma and social media, how to work on dissociation”

Angela Sordano, Luca Pinciaroli, Andrea Montagnini, Italy

“Research in therapy is not a myth”

Kristina Gotseva-Balgaranova, Milena Mutafchieva, Bulgaria

“The drawing of the Bird’s Nest as a psychodrama work technique with traumatized children. The Rwandan experience.”

Melinda Varga, Hungary, Stefania Giampaoli, Italy

On Sunday morning we had two plenary sessions during which Moira Verhofstadt and Bart Haes presented their workshop “The Children’s Psychodrama – Puppets Kit” and later on Milena Mutafchieva and Stefan Flegelskamp presented the new Erasmus+ Project “Trauma stabilization for refugee families – Erasmus +-innovation project 2017-2019”.

Closure and reflection of the meeting:

This network group was interested in theoretical and practical exchange, new ideas and for the first time research regarding psychodrama with children and youth. Encounter colleagues and creating new collaborations was in the focus of the reflection of the meeting.

We have established in Turin a steering group which will take care of the content of upcoming meetings and the goals of networking in FEPTO.

Save the date!

The next local host is Craig Stevens and our network meeting will take place 1th -3rd February 2019 in Cardiff, Wales.